Borders Of Germany Research Articles

Source identification of high glyme concentrations in the Oder River

The objective of the following study was to identify the source of high concentrations of glycol diethers (diglyme, triglyme, and tetraglyme) in the Oder River. Altogether four sampling campaigns were conducted and over 50 surface samples collected. During the first two samplings of the Oder River in the Oderbruch region (km 626–690), glymes were detected at concentrations reaching 0.065 μg L−1 (diglyme), 0.54 μg L−1 (triglyme) and 1.7 μg L−1 (tetraglyme). The subsequent sampling of the Oder River, from the area close to the source to the Poland–Germany border (about 500 km) helped to identify the possible area of the dominating glyme entry into the river between km 310 and km 331. During that sampling, the maximum concentration of triglyme was 0.46 μg L−1 and tetraglyme 2.2 μg L−1; diglyme was not detected. The final sampling focused on the previously identified area of glyme entry, as well as on tributaries of the Oder River. Samples from Czarna Woda stream and Kaczawa River contained even higher concentrations of diglyme, triglyme, and tetraglyme, reaching 5.2 μg L−1, 13 μg L−1 and 81 μg L−1, respectively. Finally, three water samples were analyzed from a wastewater treatment plant receiving influents from a Copper Smelter and Refinery; diglyme, triglyme, and tetraglyme were present at a maximum concentration of 1700 μg L−1, 13,000 μg L−1, and 190,000 μg L−1, respectively. Further research helped to identify the source of glymes in the wastewater. The gas desulfurization process Solinox uses a mixture of glymes (Genosorb®1900) as a physical absorption medium to remove sulfur dioxide from off-gases from the power plant. The wastewater generated from the process and from the maintenance of the equipment is initially directed to the wastewater treatment plant where it undergoes mechanical and chemical treatment processes before being discharged to the tributaries of the Oder River. Although monoglyme was also analyzed, it was not detected in any of the water samples.

Archetypes of a 100% Renewable Energies Power Supply

On the way to a low carbon or even carbon neutral society there are a number of possible paths depending on political and social priorities. The German Federal Environment Agency has therefore been analyzing several “archetypes” of a future RE-based power generation. Three radically different scenarios were developed in order to study the technical and ecological feasibility of Germany switching to an electricity supply based entirely on renewable sources by 2050. Apart from different generation structures, the studies assume different degrees of connection and interchange between regions in Germany as well as between Germany and other countries within a Pan-European network.With the “Regions Network” scenario it has been shown that a 100% RE-based power generation is technically and ecologically feasible (English short version: http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/weitere_infos/3997-0.pdf). Here, all German regions make extensive use of their RE potentials. Energy efficiency compensates for the rise in consumption caused by economic growth, e-mobility, and the use of heat-pumps. The introduction of large-scale electricity storage such as Power-to-Gas and the utilization of demand side management potentials plus a well-developed national electricity transmission grid make substantial contributions to the balancing of load and production. The system dynamics between supply and demand were minutely analyzed over 4 consecutive years.In the “Local Energy Autarky” scenario, small-scale decentralized energy systems use locally available RE sources to satisfy their power demand without being connected with each other or outside suppliers, i.e. without electricity imports to Germany.The “International Large Scale” scenario addresses the question whether and to which extent a wider network reaching across Germany's borders can be beneficial in terms of the optimal use of REs, the large-scale balancing between fluctuating RE feed-in and load, and using storage potentials.

TICOM and the Search for OKW/Chi

In the final days of the Third Reich, the Allies sent TICOM intelligence assault teams into Germany in search of the signal intelligence secrets of the Wehrmacht. Chief among their targets was the Wehrmacht cryptologic service OKW/Chi. As OKW/Chi dissolved in the final days of the war, its archive disappeared, resulting in a months-long search from the northern most border of Germany to the mountains of Bavaria and Austria. This is the story of that search, of which details had remained classified for over 60 years1. 1Many of the TICOM reports cited in this article can be found on the author's website, the TICOM Archive, available at https://sites.google.com/site/ticomarchive/. Additional TICOM documentation can be found on Chris Triantafyllopoulos’ website, Christos Military and Intelligence Corner, available at http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/. Click on the links under TICOM Reports.

The German Project Called “Triangelpartnerschaften” (Triangle Partnerships): Can Music Bridge the Intergenerational Gap?

The authors of this article believe intergenerational projects provide appropriate solutions to this complex phenomenon. With this in our mind, we present the story behind a unique German programi involving gifted young people which is designed to bring different age groups together in order to perform and share experiences through music. The program is called “triangle partnerships” because three institutions (a school, a university and a home for the elderly) working together to realize this vision – using music to bridge the intergenerational gap. We hope this idea will catch on and be duplicated beyond the borders of Germany. Imagine seeing and hearing young and old singing together on a weekly basis and a band with a senior citizen playing on the drums!

Foreign experience of migration flows regulation

Article is devoted to the analysis of experience of state regulation of processes of migration in France, Germany, Great Britain and Australia. The author considers the international legal acts regulating processes of migration in these countries. For the last decades national and social composition of migrants in these countries significantly changed. In France to change to natives of the European countries migrants came from Africa. T. Vitsenets notes that very often there are difficulties in adaptation of migrants to new conditions of accommodation. The state is compelled to enter legal restrictions which are necessary for country safety. Security measures are provided also by the legislation of Germany. The foreigner involved in terrorism or other activity dangerous to the country, can be sent out of borders of Germany. The migratory policy in this country is directed on increase in scientific potential, at selection of migrants with high intellectual and educational level. In Great Britain among migrants natives of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh prevail. In Australia the system of receipt of a visa according to received in the points is developed. However this system doesn't protect completely from mistakes. Influence of migratory processes on life of this country dually. On the one hand, migrants provide Australia with the qualified labor and with another - create the problems demanding the decision. Experience of state regulation of migratory processes in these countries can be made successfully use in Russia in the accounting of national and cultural features.

Machines with a Heart: German Identity in the Music of Can and Kraftwerk

This essay compares Can and Kraftwerk, two bands associated with Krautrock, a branch of West German rock and electronic music from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both bands created a new, postwar German identity that engaged with and set itself apart from the Nazi past and the influx of Anglo-American music into West Germany. This new German identity was connected to technological inventions and blending “man-made” and “machine-made” music, as well as diverting from rock music's phallocentric and guitar-heavy approach. While Can were still a traditional rock formation and looked beyond Germany's borders for musical influences, Kraftwerk gradually became an all-electronic outfit and deliberately emphasized their distinct German heritage in a semi-ironic fashion.

Culicoids as Vectors of Schmallenberg Virus

Culicoids as Vectors of Schmallenberg Virus

DECADAL MODELLING OF RAINFALL EROSIVITY IN BELGIUM

Hydrological extremes are major weather related disasters, but little is known about their long-term patterns in the context of environmental change. Better understanding of damaging rainfall (e.g. rainfall-erosivity events) occurring at different time-scales has important implications for hydrological and land degradation management. The study of the interdecadal variations may help in understanding some of the consequences of abrupt environmental changes over long time periods. Thus, a decadal-scale rainfall erosivity model (DREM), comparable with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), was developed based on a parsimonious interpretation of rain aggressiveness (95th percentile of rainfalls). The DREM was parameterised to capture interdecadal erosivity variability at the Ukkel station (Belgium), which has the longest RUSLE-based rain-erosivity series in Europe (1898–2007). The DREM performed well against decadal RUSLE data, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0·72 and a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency index of 0·71. The model outperformed three well-established models used in this study (R2 ~ 0·4). For a spatial evaluation of the DREM, a pattern of decadal rainfall erosivity was provided for an area around Ukkel, which includes the western part of Germany bordering Belgium, and was compared with maps from the RUSLE approach for 1961–1990. The 95th percentile of June–September rainfalls proved to be a better predictor of decadal rainfall erosivity than yearly based precipitation amount. These results lay the foundation for estimating decadal erosivity in the surrounding areas of Ukkle as well as for historical reconstructions where detailed hydrological data are unavailable, and assumptions cannot be met, for physically based models. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Was Germany Ever United? Evidence from Intra- and International Trade, 1885–1933

When did Germany become economically integrated? Based on a large new data set on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe, 1885–1933. The key finding is that the German Empire before 1914 was a poorly integrated economy. This internal fragmentation resulted from cultural heterogeneity, from administrative borders, and from natural geography that divided Germany into eastern and western parts. After World War I and again with the Great Depression, internal integration improved, while external integration worsened in part because of border changes along the lines of ethnolinguistic heterogeneity. By the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933, Germany was reasonably well integrated.

The Struggle for Danish Youth: Fascism, Sport, Democracy

This article demonstrates the potential fascination of Nazi ideology outside Germany's borders in a country declared by the Nazis to be a friendly and racially pure zone and with the celebration of the athletic body as the common denominator. The article also shows that the use of sexuality as a political weapon is not a new phenomenon invented by modern American politics. The great paradox of the life of the internationally renowned Danish gymnastics innovator Niels Bukh is that he created a liberating male gymnastics but tried to use it for totalitarian purposes. Nazism's enormous gravitational pull stemmed from an extremely competent aestheticization of politics. Without a realization of the power that a cult exerts, it is impossible to understand, let alone resist, the appeal of Nazism to the human subconscious. Bukh was a master at playing on exactly these emotional strings. And this was why the Nazi authorities were so pleased with Bukh that they invited him to present displays in the Third Reich, rushed off to Bukh's little cult refuge in the North and introduced his gymnastics into German sports education. For the Nazis, Bukh's gymnasts were the incarnation of a perfection of the Aryan race.

Near‐Well Nonlinear Flow Identified by Various Displacement Well Response Testing

The impact of nonlinear flow phenomena on well response tests is still not completely understood today. With the present paper, a set of 10 well response tests is investigated. The tests were conducted in a fractured Devonian limestone formation close to the western national border of Germany. The test design incorporates a packer as well as different solid cylinders to initiate a series of slug-injection and slug-withdrawal tests by various initial displacements. Nonlinear response characteristics were observed in the course of the tests, which cannot be explained by tubing-controlled flow inside the cased well. The analysis shows that the nonlinear response characteristics are likely to be either formation controlled according to non-Darcian flow developing in a high-conductivity fracture compartment of the tested limestone formation or a consequence of a severe well inefficiency caused by some sort of screen clogging. This inference is obtained from analyzing the data by a nonlinear well response test model, which differentiates between wellbore internal hydraulic head losses and a generalized rate-dependent skin effect accounting for nonlinear flow processes in the vicinity of the well. The potential of identifying near-well nonlinear flow by various displacement well response testing may indicate this methodology to be a valuable complement to modern high-resolution borehole imaging techniques used when characterizing fractured reservoirs and the tightness of fractured reservoir cap rocks.

The Intelligentsia Meets the Enemy: Educated Soviet Officers in Defeated Germany, 1945

She Is, Accursed Germany! Major Lev Kopelev entered East Prussia on a Ford truck. There were no markers, so he had to distinguish border himself: had already been agreed upon earlier: as soon as we crossed border, we would mark it in an appropriate fashion. Having stopped precisely on line according to map, I commanded, 'Here is Germany, get out and relieve yourselves!' It seemed witty to us, standing right next to cuvette, to mark initial entry into enemy territory in precisely way. (1) Germany welcomed Vladimir Gel'fand, commander of a mortar platoon, in an ungracious manner, a snow storm, ferocious wind, and empty, almost extinct villages. (2) war correspondent Vasilii Grossman entered German territory toward evening. It was foggy and rainy, and scent of forest rot was in air. Dark pine trees, fields, farms, service buildings, houses with sharp edged stretched out along highway. was great charm in scenery, Grossman wrote, the small but very thick woods were nice, with bluish-gray asphalt and brick roads running through them. His notes might seem like those of a tourist if not for reference to huge sign on shoulder of road: Soldier, here it is--the lair of fascist beast. (3) commander of a cannon platoon, Lieutenant Boris Itenberg, crossed border of East Prussia in region of Gumbinnen on an armored train. He saw Germany, this accursed country, for first rime on 25 March 1945. (4) Three weeks later, Lance-Corporal David Kaufman crossed German border: From Birnbaum to Landsberg runs a narrow highway with trees planted accurately alongside Approaching Schwerin, a wide placard across road read: 'Here was border of was Germany. I involuntarily felt anxious crossing unseen border. Tiled roofs of settlements reddened welcomingly amid clear winter crops on brilliant and green backdrop of a spring morning. serenity of morning smoothed over emptiness of villages and ugliness of ruins. It introduced a certain simplicity to regular and tidy landscape, small pine groves, rolling hills, even, cultivated fields. (5) Lieutenant Elena Kogan entered Germany along same highway: Outside Birnbaum there was a control-admission point (KPP). A large arch read, 'Here was border of Germany.' Everyone who in those days traveled on Berlin highway read yet another inscription, made with tar by some soldier on a half-destroyed house closest to arch, in huge curved letters: Here she is, accursed Germany! (6) Major Boris Slutskii ended war not in Germany but in Austria. For men in his unit, however, there was no difference between Germans and Austrians: The army could sense a German. We didn't know German well enough to distinguish between Prussian and Styrian dialects. We knew too little about world history to assess autonomy of Austria within Great German system.... soldiers listened attentively to admonitions about difference between Germany and Austria and didn't believe a word of it. (7) This article was written on basis of letters, diaries, and memoirs of Soviet servicemen who ended war in territory of Third Reich. youngest of them, Evgenii Plimak, a sergeant-major and translator for army intelligence, turned 20 in 1945; oldest, already well-known writer Vasilii Grossman, was 40. majority were between ages of 22 and 34, with ranks from junior lieutenant to major. (8) They were not typical representatives of Soviet officer corps. First, majority came from Moscow; second, they had either completed or interrupted their studies in institutions of higher education, and third, many of them could communicate in German--some haltingly, some excellently. For several of them, work with enemy became a military profession: they were either translators or propagandists. …

Mortal Embrace: Germans and (Soviet) Russians in the First Half of the 20th Century

Historical Debates Surrounding German-Russian Relationship This special issue of Kritika spotlights episodes from primarily confrontational relationship between Germany and (Soviet) Russia in first half of 20th century. The multifaceted historiography to which it has given rise has significance beyond specific context of relationship itself, because two countries' history and their ties with each other are paradigmatic cases of aberrant developments and threats from within that face modern societies. (1) After World War II, there were two approaches--both of them decisively influenced by Cold War but potent nonetheless--to causes and phenomena of National Socialism and Stalinism. From field of political science arose totalitarianism theory, which considered totalitarian dictatorships as variants of modern mass society. (2) From another perspective, drawing on theories of modernization, historians and historically oriented social scientists created master narratives determined by developmental determinants that today might be subsumed under heading of path dependence. (3) Through decades, both approaches grew internally differentiated and experienced periods of rejection. After collapse of Soviet Union, they enjoyed a renaissance in a form enriched by cultural history. Beyond theories of totalitarianism, however, comparing two systems remains a challenge. (4) Moreover, although rejected since late 1980s, thesis of a German Sonderweg continues to exercise great attraction in regard to particular spheres of activity, such as continuities of German antisemitism (5) or militaristic organizational culture. (6) The older theories of German Sonderweg were entirely fixated on comparing Germany's development with West--that is, France, Great Britain, and United States. (7) Only since late 1980s was this one-sided orientation questioned through so-called Historikerstreit. Its initiator, Ernst Noite, launched a debate about supposed causal nexus between Bolshevism and National Socialism--to use a catchphrase, nexus between Gulag and Holocaust. The ensuing debates about singularity of Holocaust were marked by a lack of interest (as well as knowledge) among both West German historians and wider public about events east of Germany's borders and German involvement in what occurred there. (8) That Germany had interacted economically, politically, and culturally not only with West but with East as well was never problematized in Sonderweg discussions. Ernst Nolte's work on intellectual and political history forms an exception to extent that his studies on fascism, and even more his monograph on European civil war, addressed Germany's relationship with Western as well as Eastern Europe. (This also revealed, however, pitfalls of a narrowly intellectual- or political-history approach, which seemed a little old-fashioned even then.) (9) The Historikerstreit raised, avant la lettre, questions about mutual influences, about interactions, and about adaptations and transfers and transnationality that Ernst Nolte mostly answered wrongly or not at all. The history of German-Russian and German-Soviet relations and interactions actually has a considerable historiography of its own, but in historiographic mainstream it has always been received with only limited interest for the East. (10) The reasons are manifold and cannot be discussed here. (11) The vast literature that could be cited includes, for 20th century, historiography on debates and conflicts within Second International and communist and socialist movements after 1918, (12) on Berlin as Europe's Eastern Station, (12) role of fellow travelers in interwar period, (14) commitment of German historians and social scientists to creation of a new order, (15) history of prisoners of war in World War I (16) and, especially, World War II, (17) German occupation in both world wars, (18) and lastly Russians in Germany. …

Was Germany ever United? Evidence from Intra- and International Trade 1885-1933

This paper asks whether Germany was ever an economically integrated area. I explore the geography of trade costs in a new data set of about 40,000 observations on regional trade flows within and across the borders of Germany over the period 1885-1933. There are three key results. First, the German Empire before 1914 was a poorly integrated economy, both relative to integration across the borders of the German state and internally. Second, this internal fragmentation had its origins in administrative borders within Germany, in a geographical barrier that divided Germany roughly along natural trade routes into east and west, and in a considerable cultural heterogeneity within Germany prior to 1919. Third, internal integration improved along with external disintegration in the wake of the war, partly due to border changes along the lines of ethno-linguistic heterogeneity and again with the Great Depression. By the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933, Germany was reasonably well integrated.

Using Location-based Tracking Data to Analyze the Movements of City Tourists

This article presents a methodology to analyze the spatial behavior of tourists based on tracking data. This method was applied during a field study in the city of Gorlitz at the east border of Germany. Based on Global Positioning System (GPS) logs the spatial distribution of visitors in various areas is visualized and analyzed. Using the bimodality of the distribution of walking speeds, areas of slowdown are identified and subsequently clustered into activity areas. Using the activity areas, the amount of time tourists allocate to various activity categories is computed. Furthermore, a subsequent analysis of the activity behavior is used to identify the current visiting pattern of tourists and a network analysis of the identified activity areas is used to locate hubs. The network analysis highlights sequences of sights used very often and therefore identifies the beaten paths.

DDT is back: let us spray!

DDT is back: let us spray!

Die Deutsche Kriegsgesellschaft 1939 bis 1945. Politisierung, Vernichtung, Überleben. Edited by Jörg Echternkamp. Band 9, Halbband 1, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Edited by Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. 2004. Pp. xi+993. €49.80. ISBN 3-421-06236-6. Die Deutsche Kriegsgesellschaft 1939 bis 1945. Ausbeutung, Deutungen, Ausgrenzung. Edited by Jörg Echternkamp. Band 9, Halbband 2, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite

During the Second World War, Germans fought a “two-front war.” A “community of fate” bound together Germans at home and Germans in uniform who carried the war beyond Germany's borders. “Between 1939 and 1945, there was no doubt that civilians were no longer excluded from the fighting; they found themselves right in the middle of it—as actors, as observers, and as those who bore the suffering” (part 1, p. 2) of the war. The Nazi leadership knew this from the start, and only days after the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hermann Göring was exhorting a factory workforce to remember: “We are now all fighters at the front!”(part 1, p. 8). Jörg Echternkamp reminds us of this in his introduction to this massive two-part volume, the latest installment in the history of Germany in the Second World War that has occupied historians of the Military History Research Office (Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, or MGFA) for the last twenty-five years. Echternkamp is the editor, and he deserves enormous credit for pulling together a collection of twenty essays—some of which could easily stand on their own as monographs, all of which are grounded in staggering amounts of original research—that not only summarize what we know about the impact of the war on the homefront in Germany, but also add considerably to that knowledge. Previous volumes in the MGFA series (seven of which are available from Oxford University Press in English translation) have focused primarily on the military planning, the war at the front, and the organization of the war economy at home. In the more than 2,000 pages of this two-part volume, contributors turn their attention to the impact of the war on German society. The results are extremely impressive, and what Echternkamp has brought together will be the starting point for anyone who wants to understand the war at home in Germany.

National checklist for aquatic alien species in Germany

More than 140 aquatic alien species (AAS) have been reported from coastlines of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and from inland waters within the national borders of Germany. The majority of these species has established self-sustaining populations. The most important vectors of introduction are shipping, species imports for aquaculture purposes and species imports as part of the ornamental trade. Several AAS have reached German waters via shipping canals. Many species show a locally limited distribution, but almost half of all AAS have spread successfully across larger areas. Several introduced species are abundant and approximately 20 % of all AAS in Germany can be considered as invasive. Prime source regions are the north-western Atlantic, the Indo-Pacific, and the Ponto-Caspian region. For all source regions considered, the invasion rate has been increasing since the end of the last century.

Schulbau jenseits der Norm: Hans Scharouns Mädchengymnasium in Lünen

The school building as a form of pedagogy has been paid more attention since it has been considered as a space for living and making experiences and as a ‘third teacher’. Searching for an up‐to‐date school one often looks for schools with a different appearance from normal schools. This is due to the practical purpose of building schools and classrooms in which pupils have a good experience. This article deals with such a different school, presenting an example that has very much influenced the debates about school architecture in Western Germany after 1945. The architect of the school was Hans Scharoun. This example of a building beyond the norm is the contemporary Geschwister‐Scholl‐Gesamtschule (comprehensive school) in Lunen, North Rhine‐Westphalia. This school was built between 1956 and 1962 as a grammar school for girls. From a historical point of view the school is above all interesting because its architecture was connected with pedagogical intentions and hopes that are not dissimilar to such cons...

Backward modeling of the rifting kinematics in the Upper Rhine Graben: insights from an elastic-perfect contact law on the restoration of a multi-bloc domain

This paper addresses the problem of volume restoration for 3-D sedimentary basin kinematic deformation. The primary purpose is methodological and concerns the use of contact mechanics with the finite element method, in order to deform a geological multi-bloc domain. This approach is applied to backward model the later stage of rifting of a segment of the southern Upper Rhine Graben (France–Germany border). Preliminary results from our modeling demonstrate the ability of the method not only to handle complex geometries, but also to successfully perform retro-deformation of a complex geological domain. In addition, they provide or confirm crucial information on the rifting evolution and tectonic features of this segment of the Upper Rhine Graben, such as the distribution of deformation, the asymmetry of the graben and a significant left-lateral strike-slip component of displacement.